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If we roll two years back when we were first got introduced to the wi-tribe brand, I have to admit that it was challenging to understand it by just reading ?A? brand manual, and I would lie if I told you we got the website right after one month of launching the brand?

And now I assure you that we have successfully revamped our website to reflect our brand!

Ingredients used:

Less is more: an adequate white space giving the site a clutter-less noise-less feel! Subtle colors with low contrast for elemental backgrounds, not to mention that we have used a plain white color as a background, you can really feel the site breathing in with ease!

Burgundy? one of our primary colors, coming from ?less is more? perspective we thought by adding subtle touches of this color would just do it, in psychology it?s a Red range color, if we use it as a background, visitors might feel uncomfortable looking at the monitor, this explains why fast food restaurants uses the color red extensively, they want to you to eat fast and just leave!

Illustrations: yep, no girls lying down on a grass with a notebook, or a high-tech guy with his gadgets on, simple illustrations that relates to its section or sub section? now this is unique and thats what makes us different, kind of positioning ourselves away from our?competitors.

A search box at the top right corner of the site, makes it visible for searching the search box itself ( web psychology ).

An opt-in link for our newsletter, trying to apply permission based marketing in a clutter-full mass marketing world? should make a difference!

Flash ( home spotlight ) : a rotating images/messages that relates to us wi-tribe our brand, will definitely make you understand that we are not a dating site but an ISP ? a wireless one.

Homepage widgets: pulls information from events, news and In which country do we operate in.

Footer: split in to two, one which has the social icons on it ( facebook, twitter & the rss links ) and an expandable one with our sitemap in it ( yeah trying to have less on a page ).

An introduction block at the top of every section that tells you briefly about the section itself? hence intro block!

That?s it in a nutshell, Feel free to browse around our revamped website, hop on the media center I kinda love it! http://www.wi-tribe.com

P.S thats the holding corporate site... wait for the retails ;)

P.S #2 I no longer work for wi-tribe & they've managed to screw up the design somehow :-|

Whether you are using it or not, Email remains the digital marketers #1 choice, its the big block engine that consumes a big share of our digital marketing strategy, using it the wrong way could really harm your entire strategy...

Below is a list of email marketing Do's, if correctly followed you will notice a big change with your subscribers & your subscribers response rate... to the better off course ;)

Permission permission permission...

"Always use confirmed opt-in, stop spamming people with unsolicited emails which usually gets deleted or junked by smart spam filters "

Provide a one click unsubscribe link

"Remember, if the user want to opt out and cant find a way to do it peacfully, the user then will junk you, that means a junk point addition, once you reach your junk points limit, you'll be black listed ( gmail ), provide a one click opt-out link."

Provide a hosted version of the email

"Add a link at the top of the email that says "can't view this email? click here to read it online", you would never know how the user's email client behave ..."

So you think an inline image is enough?

"Think twice, what if it was stripped by the email client? provide a text version only or a good combination of text & images would do just fine!"

A visible call to action...

"you have sent the email for a reason, provide a clear CTA's whether an image or text for example [register NOW] [ do something ]..."

Test Test & Test ...

"Don't assume your readers uses the same email client as yours, there are lots of flavours out with different versions, what works with outlook 2007 might dont work with Thunderbird..."

Track it down ...

"Whats the email campaign's open rate? use clear gifs or web beacons to track the open rate & Always track down how they've reached the article/product/promotion and through which CTA? was it the image? or was it the text? use advanced google analytics to determine the last, for example " source=emailcampaign1&ref=image1 " ... or simply checkout campaignmonitor.com"

Frequency & Recency

One more thing ...

Bonus material ...

"Beep Beep" an SMS alert, i pick up the phone to see the message and i go oh shoot, there ya go again, another zain message and without even reading the message i delete it with passion...

Seriously, how often do you get?interrupted?with such ads? ?whether you are checking your email or watching one of MBC's channel or probably receiving an SMS while driving, and how often do you delete that sms/email or switch to a different channel ... ?The important question is WHY?

Because you?haven't?opted-in for it at the first place, that means?interruption?marketing is not working for them nor on us anymore, it became another noise in the background...

Back to zain, i haven't asked for it, please keep it for yourself.

Batelco on the other hand got an opt-in driven sms "contest", but once you are in you can never get out ( you should probably dial 196 and click through the tree until you get a human to sort you out ) so even while you are roaming out of the country, they will spam you with their questions to death... there aren't any instructions on how to opt-out using sms!

Moral of the story #1

" Make sure to have a visible opt-in instructions and a visible opt-out instructions "

Moral of the story #2

" Even though you got an opt-in strategy it doesn't mean that you are not spamming "

Moral of the story #3

" DVRs were created to skip TV ads, not just record to record TV shows * MBC * "

Moral of the story #4

" We are witnessing the death of ?interruption?marketing, we live in a small island, be different switch to permission marketing, start by building your opt-in email lists or try viral perhaps?"

My next topic is going to be on email marketing best practices, hope the local big guys and their agencies are watching this space, it will really sort them out...

How often do you receive a confirmation email and get to read all of it?

i usually read the upper block and scroll fast to the bottom to see if there are any other important information i need to know whether im ordering from amazon, ebay or just an opt-in newsletter confirmation...

This one was a bit different, moo.com is a card designing/printing website, the user journey; throughout selecting the type of cards and designing them was a lot of fun, and easy to use.

The fun part began when i received my order's?email?confirmation?... It made me read the whole email with a big smile on my face! That's what i call a user experience joyness :

Hello
I'm Little MOO - the bit of software that will be managing your order
with us. It will shortly be sent to Big MOO, our print machine who will
print it for you in the next few days. I'll let you know when it's done
and on its way to you.
Flickr users, listen up: Please do not remove the photos from your
account, or change their privacy settings, until your order has been
printed, or some pictures may come out blank.
You can track and manage your order at: https://***
Estimated Shipping Date: *** 2009
Remember, I'm just a bit of software. So, if you have any questions
regarding your order please first read our Frequently Asked Questions
at:
http://www.moo.com/help/
and if you're still not sure, contact customer services (who are real
people) at:
https://secure.moo.com/service/
Thanks,
Little MOO, Print Robot
MOO
"We love to print"
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Order details as follows:
************
************

Forsman and Bodenfors turns Facebook tagging into a promotional tool for the opening of Ikea's new store in Malmo, Sweden.

Forsman & Bodenfors came up with another innovative digital campaign for Ikea by turning one of Facebook's basic functions into a promotional tool, to promote the opening of the brand's Malmo outpost, its most modern store to date. Armed with little media budget, the agency came up with an unconventional Facebook campaign that started with a profile of the store's manager, Gordon Gustavsson. Gustavsson uploaded pictures of the store's showrooms to his photo album and any "friends" who tagged the products with their names then won those items.

We've all noticed the appearance of online advertising in our country/region which leads to the conclusion that business owners are now realizing the power of the digital medium and the channels behind it. This also means that they are budgeting for online ad spending, that is on its own an increase in online ad spending in this region.

Unfortunately companies like Zain and Batelco are applying it the wrong way, im hereby discarding the IAB guidelines and standards and just talking common-sense.

we all know What Zain & Batelco are at least locally we do, and most of us will find a way to reach their website when we require more information about a certain product or service (7elow?) Depending on what we are looking for most of us again apply the scan method in combination with the?baby duck syndrome, that is on its own frustrating if the Information architecture wasn't done properly,? now lets concentrate on ads bits, shall we?

If you are a facebook user you might have came across couple of ads from both companies which looks like this.

A part from its being a "misleading ad" oh well the usual Zain, when you click the ad it takes you to the index of their website "BOOM" there you are infront of 7 or more navigation links to choose from and you have been there before.

So basically they have generated a generic traffic ( a part from awareness ) to their website, but what are they doing with that traffic?

i bet a bounce rate of 80% or more occurs on daily basis because they smack users with the same website, which is not directly related to the ad itself.

Here we notice the absence of microsites or and expendable banners were they can collect user information from the ad itself without the need to navigate away from ad location, or simply link the ad to the related product on the site itself ( worst case scenario ). you can find out more on ad-format variations on eye-blaster website.

There are more issues related to their online presence if you look further into new trends such as RSS,opt-in email newsletters/marketing and proper social media optimization/engagement, did i mention that they are also using tables instead of divs ?oh well its all about time me thinks, what do you think?

The video explains how to setup an online brand monitoing dashboard using free available tools such as google alerts, social mention, techonarti search, twitter search, wordpress search and of course netvibes :-)

In today?s competitive world, it is extremely important to monitor, control and influence the image of your brand and what?s been said about it irrespective of your participation in social media conversations.

Brands are being discussed and an increasing number of conversations are based around such discussions,whether positive & negative, therefor businesses should understand the danger of user generated content from blogs to wikis, from micro-blogging platforms to comlpex social networking platforms as consumer decisions are altered and driven by user online reviews and ratings to a much larger extent today.